Digital Capture Info

What will be coming in the days and weeks ahead are insights that I'll share with you from my 30 + years of image making. On these pages we'll focus on issues more to do with digital image capture; both scanned and camera based.

 

In House Digital Capture

I am currently shooting with a Nikon D200 although that will soon be replaced with a D700. I also use several small point and shoot for those times when I just need a picture. We have both a Nikon Coolpix 550 and 220. Images are brought into, or ingested with Lightroom. Although I can use Capture NX2, or ID imager, I primarily use LR 3.3. I shoot in RAW with the D200. I keep my NEF files to work with in ACR of LR. I have many presets in my developing module of LR for studio shoots, landscape, etc.

I would recommend that all capture be done as RAW when possible. This is most of the time. It affords the highest final image quality. The only time I might consider a different recommendation would be for those unable to process large numbers of RAW files because your computer is too old. In which case, I'd recommend a new computer but that too may not be an option in these tighter economic times.

I also use a Nikon Coolscan 9000 to move my film captures into the digital workflow. And for my bigger films, I use an Epson V750. The film capture really doesn't allow one to practice a profiled sensor in the way that scanning does, due to workflow application. I use 4 different scanning applications to performing scans; Epson Scan, Nikon Scan, SilverFast, and VueScan. Why so many? Well each one has things it does best.

The next step is processing and editing.